COBA7® organizational structure remains unchanged. COBA7® is a division of GFA Management, Inc., dba PMN Publishing, in IN., and remains as such until transition planning group decides otherwise, likely upon successful recruitment of a leader/staff. Interested?

Recruiting additional affiliates remains a high priority, with goal of 400 ‘MHInsiders’ by year end 2015. Emphasis here is on the ‘7 Part’ tangible benefits characteristic of COBA7® for $544.95/year, compared to what a similar amount buys elsewhere!

ULI’s Manufactured Housing Communities Council has disbanded. Here’s an opportunity for MHARR, MHI, & COBA7® to launch a joint THINK TANK, to address MHIndustry issues, challenges, and future prospects in a united and thoughtful fashion! All three entities will be at the MHCongress. Might that venue be ‘the time’ to meet and talk about this possibility? I’ll write & ask. If no interest, COBA7® will do so on its own.

COBA7® leadership has been invited to participate in an upcoming RVIndustry national ‘motivational event’ at the RV/MH Heritage Foundation facility in Elkhart, IN. The thought is to possibly replicate such a ‘motivational event’ for the MHIndustry in 2016.

Next week, we’ll focus on item # two on the COBA7® WISH LIST: ‘Community Series Homes’ & CSH Model production & shipment among HUD-Code manufacturers. There are some very exciting things taking place – and about to happen, relative to ‘Selling More New HUD-Code Homes into Land-lease-lifestyle Communities’ nationwide!’

II.

WE WARNED YOU!

Not to Miss New York Housing Association’s Super Symposium

I’ve just returned from that stellar two day event. With no exaggeration, I tell you this was the most informative, challenging, and helpful state MHAssociation – hosted seminar program I’ve attended in more than three decades in this business! Nancy Geer is commended for her insight as to what NYHA members, and colleagues from 11 NE USA states, needed to hear and learn firsthand from individuals ‘making much of this happen’ to and within our industry and realty asset class. Proof of such high praise? Every session was attended by nearly all the 130+ businessmen and women registrants – right up thru the final session Thursday morning. Few meeting planners can pull off that finale’!

Jenny Hodge, vice president of MHI”s National Communities Council, delivered the ‘MHIndustry’s point of view’ per the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform Act, S.A.F.E. Act, CFPB matters, and much more. Good example of a passionate lobbyist in action.

Pamela Beck Danner, esquire, and administrator of the Office of Manufactured Housing Programs at HUD, brought everyone up to date relative to soon implementation and enforcement of installation standards, and dispute resolution program – both pretty much dormant for the past five plus years. Summary? ‘No longer her predecessor’s HUD!’

Marc Lifset & Jeffrey Barringer, esquires, with McGlinchey Stafford did pretty much the impossible: described current status of state laws under all new federal regulations. They then went onto answer: ‘Is Lease with Option to Purchase Viable in Your State?’ And let me tell you, the Power Point copies supplied by Danner, Lifset & Barringer were alone, ‘worth the price of admission’ to this Super Symposium.

As requested, I updated the ‘State of the MHIndustry & LLLCommunity Asset Class’ statistics – many of which have changed just since the first of the year! Went on to describe the Asset Aggregator Wave of LLLCommunity Consolidation – the fourth such ‘wave’ – including syndicators of the late 1970s, REITs in the early 1990s, and ‘equity plays’ since then. Read feature article in the March issue of the Allen Letter for details.

Concluded my talk with the first public presentation of ‘Frost Free Foundation’® from the LLLCommunity Owners Perspective’; simply put: ‘Learn beforehand (Before buying a new HUD-Code home for resale on-site) whether one’s preferred home manufacturer clearly approves FFF for the installation of their homes, and says so in their Installation Manual – or consider buying elsewhere.’ Why? Because the alternative, retrofitting perfectly good rental homesites, to be in compliance with aforementioned (in this blog posting) federal installation standards, compliant new concrete slabs, ribbons, piers, cost on the average, $5,000.00+/- per site! And that’s not all…For a one page summary description of ‘How to learn more about FFF’, and other ‘necessary use precedents’, phone the Official MHIndustry HOTLINE: (877) MFD-HSNG or 633-4764 and request it. This offer open to everyone, not just COBA7® affiliates. MHInsiders will receive the final printed version of this FFF® aid, as a lagniappe in a future issue of the Allen Letter professional journal.